U.S. expels Syrian diplomat after massacre

The U.S. today expelled Syria's top diplomat as part of a global response to the massacre of civilians in the town of Houla last week.

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DAMASCUS — The U.S. today expelled Syria's top diplomat as part of a global response to the massacre of civilians in the town of Houla last week.

Syria's charge d'affaires Zouheir Jabbour was given 72 hours to leave the country, the US State Department said. Sources told FOX News Channel that Jabbour has already left the US.

The U.S. action was part of a coordinated response of partner countries including Australia, Canada, Spain, Britain, Italy, France and Germany to the killings, which the UN said may have included summary executions.

"We hold the Syrian government responsible for this slaughter of innocent lives," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.

Nuland described the massacre as "the most unambiguous indictment yet" of the Syrian government's flagrant violations of its UN Security Council obligations.

The move came as UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan met Syrian President Bashar al Assad in Damascus.

In the meeting, Assad blamed terrorists for the atrocities in Houla and warned that Western support for rebels threatened Annan's peace plan.

Assad "pointed out that the armed terrorist groups escalated their terrorist acts noticeably as of late in various areas across Syria," the official SANA news agency reported.

He also "stressed the need for the countries who are financing, arming and harboring the terrorist groups to commit to Annan's plan and that these countries' political will to participate in stopping terrorism must be put to the test," the report said.

The deaths of 108 people, mostly women and children, in Houla on Friday shattered a monthlong cease-fire that had barely held.

The incident drew a sweeping condemnation of the Syrian government, including from its ally Russia, for violating the peace plan.

The UN rights body accused the Assad regime of "summarily executing" more than 80 people in Houla.

"It's believed that under 20 of the 108 killings can be attributed to artillery and tank fire," Rupert Colville, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said at a news briefing. "Most of the rest of the victims in Taldo, one of the areas of Houla, were summarily executed in two separate incidents."

The spokesman said the information, which he described as "very preliminary," was based on reports from survivors to UN investigators.

The visit of Annan did little to stem the violence, with observers reporting the deaths of 19 people overnight Monday and early today.

Among those killed was Bassel Shehade, a Syrian Fulbright scholar who cut short his studies in the U.S. to return home Syria to film and photograph the conflict, a tribute page on Facebook said.